Sweethearts
by Magical Irish Dolphin
Summary: A character study about Joe Haskell and Carolyn Stoddard and the things happening in their lives. Also features Buzz the biker guy. One-shot.


**Disclaimer: Dark Shadows is** **a Dan Curtis Production and not mine **

* * *

Sweethearts

The light from the pale moon reflected on the dark surface of the murky waters as Joe Haskell aimlessly wandered the mostly deserted docks. Boat engines gruffly whirr the cold salt water air as fishermen tried to maneuver around each other in the crowded misty bay.

Joe's face was obscured by the shadows of the night, but through the darkness, the young man wore an emotionless mask. His mind was numb and he tried to block out the noisy boat engines. Every time he heard them, he became plagued with memories of what he once thought he most desired; to live a simple normal life of being the man of the sea. He once thought he wanted to own a boat of his own, and share in some hard-working rewards with the woman he loved.

But the woman he loved was abruptly taken from him, and now she was locked up safely away a hundred miles out of town.

Something bad happened to her, so bad, Joe desperately wanted to help her. But she looked at him like a total stranger, and something made her continuously retreat into a childlike shell. She sang nursery rhymes, recite riddles, and clung to some mysterious old doll.

She'd been driven into madness and was no longer the spirited young woman Joe knew. What hurt the most was she would flinch away from him in terror whenever he tried to console her.

Joe squeezed shut his eyes as he continued trudging along miserably on the dock.

Why would anybody do this to her? What sick perverted maniac would want to do this to Maggie Evans?

Just then, Joe clumsily bumped into someone from the shadows. As it turned out, it was the last person he wanted to bump into.

"Joey!" squealed Carolyn Stoddard drunkenly.

She shakily grasped a long bottle of alcohol, spilling its contents as she clumsily flail about.

"Carolyn." Joe looked at her dismissively.

He critically eyed her from head to toe. She wore her black pants, white sweater, and black coat. Her shoulder-length silky blonde hair was messily pulled back, as if she'd been through a wind tunnel. Whenever Carolyn dressed like this, and clung to a bottle of booze with shaky hands, it usually meant her partner in crime was not too far behind.

"Where's Puzz, or Fuzz, or whatever his name is?" Joe sniped.

"Hey! Who's calling the fuzz?!" boomed out a voice behind Carolyn.

Through the shadows of the docks, Carolyn's intoxicated biker boyfriend emerged. He, too, clung to a bottle of liquor. He wore worn out jeans, a less than modest shirt, and a leather jacket with chains attached. His dark pupils were blurry, and his greasy beard stuck to his dirty flushed face.

Joe scoffed and rolled his eyes at the sight of the biker.

"His name is not Fuzz, Joey, he's Buzz!" Carolyn girlishly giggled, pointing a finger at him, but nearly stumbled over in the process.

"Yeah, well, my name isn't Joey," Joe scathingly countered, disgusted by the lush sight of the girl he once affectionately referred to as his sweetheart. That seemed like ages upon ages ago. Joe couldn't believe he desperately wanted to marry her back in those days.

"Hey! What's in a name?" Buzz cut in good-naturedly.

His booming voice made Joe wince.

"We're all as cool and mellow as the breeze," stated Buzz.

Joe rolled his eyes at that.

Carolyn wrapped her arms around the faux bohemian motorcyclist, and cooed adoringly into his ear. They'd both dropped their bottles together in unison, having them smashed into many little sharp pieces below.

"Oh, Buzz, I hope when we're married, you'll say such profound things all the time!" Carolyn slurred softly.

At this, Joe's heart instantly and unexpectedly fell.

"Wait, you're marrying him!?" Joe demanded of Carolyn, his wide blue eyes clearly hurt.

She was willing to marry a loser like Buzz but not the man who was loyal and devoted to her like he was?

"Hey, ya gotta problem with that, square?!" Buzz shot at him fiercely, roughly grabbing Joe by the collar of his heavy green coat. "She's my chick!"

Joe retaliated by slugging the biker straight on the jaw, his impact sending Buzz hard on the dock. Buzz landed painfully on top of the broken shards of glass from the liquor bottles he and Carolyn dropped.

"Hey! Who d'you think you are!" Carolyn screamed at her ex, attempting to advance on him.

"Oh, just leave me alone, Carolyn!"

Joe turned away from her before she could hit him, and went on his way.

"Joey?" Carolyn watched him go somewhat pensively.

Even in her perpetual drunken state, the heiress sensed a tremendous amount of sorrow taunting her ex.

* * *

The small dingy curtain window mostly blocked out the sun's raze in a tiny fishing shack on the docks. Buzz often came here whenever he was burnt out and needed a place to crash.

The shack was littered with beer cans and old cigarette cartons complete with cigarette butts. There was no stored up fishing equipment.

A springy stained mattress laid in the middle of the floor where Buzz and his silky blonde made out. In the midst of their mindless passion, Buzz sensed some hesitation coming from his fiancée. He lifted himself up to his elbows, and looked down on her intently beneath him.

"Hey, now, what's the matter?" Buzz asked in a whining voice.

"Nothing," Carolyn insisted. "I was just thinking about Joe is all."

"Oh, honey, a man doesn't like hearing the chick he digs thinking about another man in the midst of passion," Buzz complained.

"It's nothing like that." Carolyn sighed as Buzz rolled off of her and laid next to her on his back on the unsanitary mattress.

"Are you sure?" Buzz persisted, whipping on his thick sunglasses. "Not too long ago that square wanted to marry ya!"

"It's not like that at all," Carolyn said irritably. "I'm just worry about him."

"Why?" demanded Buzz.

"His chick got killed," Carolyn explained in a language he could understand.

Buzz responded by making a deep melancholy whistle. "Man, that's heavy."

"I just heard about it."

Carolyn recalled her earlier encounter with Joe on the docks that afternoon. She attempted to console him and tried to be a real friend to him, but something was holding him back. She couldn't possibly blamed him. She was never a good girlfriend to him and he was likely doubting she could ever be a good friend. After all, the conversation on the docks became all about her and not him.

Carolyn wondered why she had to turn into a total narcissists at the most inappropriate of times.

"What are you planning to do?" Buzz inquired of Carolyn, lighting up a cigar he kept in a metal box beside the mattress. "Seek him out? Kiss him and make everything better?"

"Not like that, silly!" Carolyn cast him a flirty smile and sat up to a sitting position on the mattress. "You and I got a wedding to plan. A fabulous, spectacular wedding with my incomparable mother and the debonair Jason McGuire!"

"Yeah, baby!" Buzz said delightedly, laying cozily on the mattress with his smoking cigar.

He seemed secure on where he stood in regards to his "bride." But all Carolyn could think about was her mother and why she was always so secretive when it comes to her alliance with Jason. Why was she so open to Vicki and not to the girl she raised?

"But I am going to seek out Joe," Carolyn decided, shifting her thoughts away from her mother.

"What for!" griped Buzz.

"I surely hope I'm allowed to have friends when we marry." Carolyn lifted an eyebrow.

"But he's your ex!" Buzz protested.

"He's someone who needs a friend right now," Carolyn countered reasonably.

"'Cause of his dead chick?" Buzz furrowed his brow.

"That and other things." Carolyn shrugged thoughtfully.

There was still some unresolved issues she needed to sort out with Joe.

"Then you'd better go find him." Buzz shrugged.

He looked as though he could read her mind.

"You honestly don't mind?" Carolyn was astonished.

"Baby, go and finally bury your past," Buzz said with a puff of his cigar. "I just want to focus on you and the bike."

Carolyn smiled brokenly.

* * *

As the afternoon dragged on, the gloomy skies became overcast in the typical Maine fashion. With heavy moisture hovering the air, Joe predicted that a storm was heading into town.

On break from the cannery, Joe sipped his cup of coffee at the quaint diner in the Collinsport Inn. The diner was mostly empty with a single waitress wiping the counter.

That sight resulted in sad painful memories for Joe. He must've observed Maggie doing the exact same thing a million times. His many sweet visits to her at this place during his off hours to engage in idle chitchat over boats, coffee, and their simple dreams for the future, also filled up his memories.

His heartbreaking thoughts got interrupted by an approaching presence. A presence he utterly knew intimately well.

Joe looked over his broad shoulder, and there stood Carolyn, garbed in a pink sweater, black skirt, and heels, with a black purse strapped on her left shoulder. Her silky blonde hair also draped around her shoulders, and her makeup was perfectly in place.

She came to him dressed in this kind of attire earlier on the docks when she offered her condolences over Maggie. She wasn't in her biker chick get up.

During the course of their relationship, Carolyn was constantly dishonest to Joe, especially when it came to Burke Devlin. But the tables had turned. Now not only was Joe the one being dishonest to Carolyn, he was being dishonest to all of Collinsport about the real state of Maggie Evans. He couldn't help but to recognized the brutal irony of that, especially since this lie was likely more major than any of the lies Carolyn told him.

"Hello, Joe," Carolyn said tentatively. "May I join you?"

Joe shrugged. "Why not."

Eyeing her attire, Joe knew the kind of mask she was displaying. She was showing him a part of herself she only wanted him to see, just like how she used her biker clothes to show Buzz what she wanted him to see. She was concealing her true self deep within. Joe knew from personal experiences this façade was completely insincere.

As she sat across from him at the table, sitting her purse aside, Carolyn sensed Joe was thinking that and felt a tinge of guilt. But with the way she had treated him, Carolyn knew she couldn't fault him for feeling the way he does.

"If you are once again trying to give me your sympathy, I already told you I don't want it," Joe told her stiffly.

"No, I promise it's not about Maggie," Carolyn assured him.

Hunching his square shoulders, and sighing deeply, Joe leaned across the table, and asked, "What do you want to talk about?"

"Whatever you want," Carolyn gently insisted. "I do want to be your friend, Joe. You always tried to be there for me, even when I didn't want it. It's my turn to return the favor. It's past overdue."

She guiltily dropped her gaze on her manicured nails on the table.

The waitress, Sandy, came over, and asked, "Is there anything you'd like to order, Carolyn?"

"Just some coffee, please, Sandy," replied Carolyn.

Sandy pour Carolyn some coffee, and once she left them alone, Joe commented, "It seems things are not going so well at Collinwood if you are deliberately seeking me out."

"Please, I don't want to talk about mother, or McGuire, or Buzz... or even me," said Carolyn.

"What do you want to talk about?" Joe once again asked.

Thinking desperately, Carolyn gazed around the diner. She suddenly got hit by a powerful feeling of nostalgia.

"I have a lot of memories of this place," she murmured in a small smile. "We used to race here after school to order milkshakes."

"Oh, yes." Joe grinned fondly with a nod.

It occurred to him he also harbored powerful memories of Carolyn at this place. Both Carolyn and Maggie. He suddenly recalled that it was this very diner he knew he wanted to marry Carolyn. That was when he was twelve years old.

"And then we went up to Collinwood to sneak into the West Wing." Carolyn giggled softly.

"Yes, I was never any good at the whole rebel thing like you." Joe smirked.

"It used to be so easy for us to be friends," said Carolyn.

"That's the thing," said Joe. "I never saw you as a friend. You were my sweetheart."

"I know," Carolyn said meekly, dropping her gaze on her nails again.

The tension between them was awkward and empty. But Joe attempted to lift things up.

"But now is the perfect time for us to learn to be proper friends. I am willing to try if you are."

"What better time to learn." Carolyn smiled brightly with a light shrug. "If you want, I can take you over to Bangor and we can eat out together. It would be a ball."

"I need to take care of Sam," Joe declined. "He's pretty messed up over Maggie. And besides, I don't think your fiancé would like us going out to Bangor very much."

"But you are my friend," Carolyn said sincerely.

Joe took those words in and nodded. "Yeah. I think I like to take a rain check on that offer, if you don't mind."

"Of course not, I understand."

Leaving a tip on the table, Joe said, "I'll see you around, Carolyn."

"Bye, Joe."

Carolyn watched him go with a heavy chest. She cursed herself for deeply hurting a guy who did nothing but care for her and love her.

* * *

As Joe stepped out of the Inn, his own chest became hollow as he wondered what kind of person he was suddenly becoming.

Not too long ago Joe was an honest and uncomplicated guy. But a heart shattering circumstance forced him to lie to an old friend who wanted to be there for him in his time of need in mourning. But he wasn't in need of anything like that...

Because of that deception, Joe deeply felt he was undeserving of her sympathy.


End file.
